v1.21.0 Busybox returns the same version of v.1.20?

[luc0x61]

I just checked with v1.21.0:

 # .\busybox.exe | .\head.exe -2
BusyBox v1.37.0.git (2023-12-05 19:11:03 UTC)
(glob)

and with the previous v1.20:

 # busybox | head -2
BusyBox v1.37.0.git (2023-08-01 15:10:49 UTC)
BusyBox is copyrighted by many authors between 1998-2023.

Looks like that version number is the same, with only a change in the compilation date - and the following character encoding information, as well.
Is this right?

[EDIT] Oh well, and the Busybox calling stubs are now marked as trojan by AVG, but this is another matter... 🙄

[skeeto]

Both releases correspond to upstream BusyBox 1.37, so that's not expected to change. The (glob) is a new output corresponding to FRP-5181 (see rmyorston/busybox-w32@9e2c3594), so that's definitely the new version. (See also the discussion on 4f201b2.)

[rmyorston]

Quite by chance I've just released FRP-5236. There isn't much of any importance there.

[skeeto]

Thanks, Ron! 709f676

[rmyorston]

With FRP-5236 the w64devkit build of busybox-w32 now has a manifest which allows uname to give a sensible version on Windows 10:

~ $ 121/w64devkit/bin/uname -a
Windows_NT DESKTOP-7EEFEB9 6.2 9200 x86_64 MS/Windows
~ $ 121+/w64devkit/bin/uname -a
Windows_NT DESKTOP-7EEFEB9 10.0 19045 x86_64 MS/Windows
~ $

This was discussed in busybox-w32 issue 366.

In the README there's a link to the upsteam BusyBox man page. I have a man page on my website which is closer to the w64devkit version: BusyBox.html.

[rmyorston]

From the next release the busybox-w32 Makefile will try to use some clues to provide a more meaningful version than .git.

• If the build is being done in a live git repository it'll use git describe.
• Builds from my release tarballs will use an injected .frp_describe file to get the version.
• Builds from tarballs of release tags downloaded from GitHub or GitLab will use the directory name.

Had this feature been available in earlier releases the versions reported by w64devkit would have been:

 # .\busybox.exe | .\head.exe -2
BusyBox v1.37.0.git-5181-g5c1a3b00e (2023-12-05 19:11:03 UTC)
(glob)

and

 # busybox | head -2
BusyBox v1.37.0.git-5007-g82accfc19 (2023-08-01 15:10:49 UTC)
BusyBox is copyrighted by many authors between 1998-2023.

[skeeto]

Thanks for the heads up, Ron!